Situation with Panda Production at Fiat Tychy

By pracownik - Posted on 30 grudzień 2009

The managers of FIAT would like to have more autos produced in Italy. In particular, they would like to move part of the production of the Fiat Panda from Poland to Italy. The Minister of Economic Development, Paolo Scaiola, has been pressing on FIAT for months to increase production in Italy. Fiat invested a large sum in modernizing a plant there 2 years ago.

It is not clear whether Fiat expects the taxpayers to foot the bill for this. This planned move in production defies the capitalists' typical logic of producing things cheaply. The production output levels for the 22,000 workers in several factories in Italy is practically identical to the output of the Tychy factory - with only 6100 workers. Who are cheaper.

On the other hand, FIAT would like to close down the factory in Sicily which produces Ypsilon.... and move this production to Tychy, after moving the Panda production to Italy.

Another car produced for FIAT in Tychy, the Topolino, will now be produced in Serbia, after FIAT took over Zastava.

Some workers in Tychy do not know what do make of the whole situation. For years they have been innoculated with the idea that one must work beyond one's own limits at the job and be ultraefficient so that investors will create more jobs in Poland. Overworking themselves, the Tychy plant became something of a capitalists' dream, the most efficient FIAT plant in the world, five times more productive than in Italy. And now they are wondering if they will have jobs tomorrow.

Maybe somehow somebody will start wondering if all that back breaking overwork was really in their interests.